Last of the Silent Kings
by Asuryan
Summary: He had lead his people through the War in Heaven. He had shattered the gods themselves and united a galaxy against all odds. But how would he fare in another one entirely?


Szarekh watched silently from the shadows as the Inquisitorial strike team cautiously probed the catacombs, stalking forward with smooth, measured strides; weapons sweeping from side to side with practiced precision.

There were forty of them; thirty four Stormtroopers, five Astartes, one Inquisitor, fanning out in a shallow wedge formation. The only sources of light came from the lamps attached to their helmets, casting eerie shadows on the ground as they struck the stalagmites jutting up from the floor. The only noises present were those of whirring servos and shifting armor as they moved deeper into the tombs.

The air was cold and heavy. There was a palpable oppressiveness to the atmosphere that seemed to weigh down their limbs and dull their senses, and it only grew worse with each step they took.

As soon as they passed by him, he moved.

Two unlucky soldiers went slack as a nercodermis claw materialized within each their chest cavities, shredding their heart to pieces and ripping their lungs to shreds. Taking advantage of their momentary disorientation, he freed his limbs with twin sprays of blood and lashed out with his staff. A man lost his arm as it was struck off at the shoulder. A another screamed, clutching his visor. The third held his abdomen, trying to keep his intestines in. A fourth went limp, the front of his throat gone.

Their response came less than a second later and soon lasbolts were bouncing off his sempiternally reinforced Necrodermis body like ruby-red raindrops, interspersed with bright flashes as a marine's Antiphasic rounds detonated against his chest. They peddled backwards as they fired, attempting to gain as much distance as possible from their quarry.

Szarekh gave them no such opportunity.

Springing forward with a powerful leap, he dove into the fray once more, wielding his warstaff – Nightbane – with overwhelming power and deadly precision. A soldier was deprived of his hellgun and both hands that held it. Another flew through the air, ribcage shattered. Two more toppled slackly, severed at the waist. A man dragged himself through the blood-soaked floor, seeking his legs.

He lurched slightly as a plasma round struck his side. He turned, glaring coldly at the Astartes responsible, and flexed his hand, launching a cone of burning viridian fire from his palm. A group of soldiers in the way were promptly incinerated, equipment and all, as the searing flames sought their target. The space marine made to move, but with a flick of his wrist, Szarekh directed the inferno like a conductor would an orchestra, and the blaze twisted to meet its unfortunate victim.

The Astartes only had time for a brief roar of agony before the intense heat immolated even his superhuman body. The armored figure collapsed in a heap of crackling ceramite and burning flesh, the plasma cannon he held fell to the floor with a thump.

Shocked and terrified by both the casual slaughter of their fellows and the ease with which the Silent King had dealt with one of the Emperor's finest, a few of the Stormtroopers fled deeper into the catacombs, where they would meet their death at the hands of some other Necron monstrosity. Those that remained were quickly disposed of with extreme prejudice.

Corpses and body parts lay everywhere. A lake of blood covered the stone floor. Over thirty men of the Inquisition's elite, butchered.

Szarekh stood frozen. Eyes cast downwards. Sanguine fluid dripped off his body and ran in rivulets down his warstaff to join the sizeable pool at his feet.

The remainder of the Inquisitorial strike team trained their weapons upon the unmoving form of the Silent King.

He snapped his head up, he locking gazes with the Astartes captain – eyes alight with a ghastly emerald flame – and leapt.

It spoke volumes of their training when the marine only flinched and managed to fire off a single Antiphasic round into the center of his death mask even as the tip of his warstaff plunged into the man's left eye. Before the body had even struck the ground, melta beams and bolter rounds tore through the air towards him. With a deft flick of his shoulders, he whipped his cloak in front of him and the lethal projectiles splashed harmlessly against the woven shards of crystallized time.

Szarekh vanished in a swirl of viridian mist and reappeared a moment later with a swipe of his warstaff, bisecting a marine and his meltagun, causing the weapon to detonate in a roiling sphere of superheated matter. He dashed from the inferno, wisps of fire trailing behind him, capitalizing on their temporary blindness. He impaled an Astartes through the throat before the man could recover and kicked another one in the visor with such force that the ceramite helmet cracked and split, throwing the now headless marine backwards.

The Silent King extracted Nightbane from the choking Astartes' neck with a sickening squelch and turned his attention to the Inquisitor.

The man, resplendent in an ornate suit of carapace armor, unsheathed a power sword and heroically charged at him, defiantly shouting litanies of hatred and protection.

With contemptuous ease, he cut the Inquisitor's blade in half and thrust the warstaff through his stomach. The man dropped his now-halved weapon with a clatter and weakly pulled at the weapon lodged in his midsection with one hand while the other grasped at his robes.

Szarekh spoke, his voice unnaturally loud in the deathly silence that pervaded the catacombs. "You should not have come here, interloper." He twisted the haft, eliciting a strangled cry of pain. "These catacombs are under my protection."

The Inquisitor spat at him and cursed, his words garbled and slurred. "F-foul xenos…" His hands twitched and a click sounded out. "T-the Emperor p-protects…" He went limp and something fell from the man's garments, clinking onto the floor.

The Silent King's eyes flared brightly in alarm as he recognized the distinct design of an Imperial vortex grenade and the depressed activation-rune on top.

His feet gouged the stone floor as he leapt away-

-and the explosive detonated in a swirling rift of warp energy.

He planted his warstaff into the ground, hands clutching the haft of Necrodermis with all the force that his body could muster. His timesplinter cloak tore and frayed as the carefully crafted temporal shards were catastrophically destabilized by the chaotic forces pouring from the rift. He knew he could not risk activating his phase shifter so close to a tear in the Materium for fear of ripping his own body to pieces.

Corpses, limbs, chunks of rock and globules of blood flew past him, consumed by the ever-growing hole in reality. He slowly pulled himself forward, claws digging deeply into the floor with every step.

He was pushed back when a fire-blackened plasma cannon slammed into his leg as it was drawn into the warp vortex, followed a moment later by a scorched husk clad in power armor. The stone anchoring him was broken apart by the sudden force exerted on it, and he roared in outrage as he was thrown backwards into the churning wound of the Empyrean.


End file.
